Union Belle Read Online Free Page B

door one night, and Frank turned up at work the next day with his own split lip, telling anyone who’d listen that he’d decided to take the pledge. And he did, too: not a drop of alcohol had passed his lips since. Milly and the children moved back home (their return observed with empathy and interest from behind net curtains by various Pukemiro residents), and Frank transformed himself. He’d always been a good bloke—well, until the booze had got to him—and Ellen admired the way he’d pulled himself together, so tonight she was more than happy to make him tea.
    She stood up. ‘I’ll just check on the boys first.’
    The boys’ bedroom was marginally cooler than the sitting room, the wide open windows catching a hint of the night breeze coming down off the hills. Neil’s eyes glinted in the darkness as he watched her open the bedroom door.
    ‘Still awake?’ she whispered.
    He nodded and grumbled, ‘It’s too hot, I can’t sleep.’
    Ellen tiptoed across the room and laid a hand on his damp forehead under the light-brown hair that fell perpetually into his eyes. ‘I know, love, we’re all feeling sticky. Here, take your cover off and just lie under the sheet. Better?’
    Neil nodded, and Ellen bent and kissed his cheek.
    ‘Have they decided?’ he whispered.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Dad and them.’
    ‘Decided what?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    ‘I don’t know, either. I’ve been in the sitting room since after tea.’
    Unsatisfactory as it was, the answer seemed to satisfy Neil, and he rolled onto his side and thrust his feet out from under the sheet. “Night, Mum.’
    “Night, love.’
    Ellen hovered for a moment over Davey’s bed but he was fast asleep, his mouth open and a thread of dribble dampening the pillowslip. She kissed him too, and smiled as he stirred slightly.
    She adored her boys, and sometimes when she looked at them, the sensation of love she felt in her chest physically hurt.
    As Gloria had predicted, the air in the kitchen was blue. Ellen blinked through the haze at the men around the table, littered now with tobacco packets and open beer bottles. And then her heart stopped. Only for a moment, but the gap where the beats should have been caused her to sway and reach out a hand to clutch at the bench.
    Tom saw. ‘You all right, love?’ he asked.
    Ellen nodded. ‘It’s smoky in here, I’ll open the door.’
    She turned away quickly, because sitting next to Frank was someone she hadn’t seen before, a young man with dark hair that curled down almost to his collar, and eyes the colour of deepest lignite. He had smiled at her, just at her, a smile of such intensity that for a moment she had felt distinctly light-headed.
    ‘Who was that new bloke?’
    They were in bed, the kitchen door and windows left wide open to let in the fresh night air.
    Tom rolled over and slid his hand across the firm curve of Ellen’s stomach, rubbing gently but insistently in the way that told her he wanted sex.
    ‘Jack Vaughan, came up from Ohura about ten days ago. Seems a reasonable sort of joker. Bad timing, though. Mind you, Ohura’s out too, so I suppose it doesn’t make a lot of difference. Why?’
    ‘Just wondered, I haven’t seen him around. Why is he on the committee already?’
    Tom wriggled closer. ‘Well, we’ve been one short since Ken had his heart attack, and Jack was the union secretary at Ohura for two years, so it made sense to ask him on.’
    Ellen waited a second or two, then said, ‘If he’s just moved up here, then perhaps we should invite him and his wife around for tea one night.’
    Tom moved his hand up to her breast, his rough thumb stroking the tender underside beneath the nipple. ‘Don’t think he’s got a wife.’
    For some reason, this piece of news disturbed Ellen, but she pushed it out of her mind. Moving to face her husband, she slid her leg up and over his hip, and guided him into her.
     

T WO
    March 1951
    T he Henshaw women and the Selby women slaved all Friday preparing